Clare Gaylard

Clare Gaylard is a Suffolk-based artist working primarily in glass, in the tradition known as lampwork or flamework. Essentially the tabletop counterpart of glassblowing, it is a heritage craft with roots in the Venetian tradition: glass is melted in an intense flame, wrapped around a steel rod, then worked and sculpted while molten, and every piece is kiln annealed for strength. Clare flame-sculpts glass into wearable art, tokens, talismans, and signature totems, stacked sculptures of glass elements. The work tells stories and celebrates detail, colour, light and the beauty of the small.

Clare graduated from Loughborough College of Art and Design with a BA (Hons) in Silversmithing and Jewellery, followed by a PGCE from Homerton College, Cambridge. After teaching art at a secondary school in outer London, Clare spent a decade overseas in Kenya, Thailand and Singapore, teaching, working for NGOs and curating for two galleries. After many years of painting, drawing, and experimental photography (such as Polaroid manipulation) it was there that glass took hold: in 2006 Clare learned flamework at Hoglund Art Glass in New Zealand, then worked from home studios and held solo exhibitions and artist residencies in Thailand and Singapore before returning to the UK in 2010. She later learned that her maternal great-grandfather was a glassblower in a Sunderland factory.

Clare is a selected member of the Suffolk Craft Society, managing its social media and hanging various exhibitions for the group, and is listed on the Crafts Council Directory of Makers. Clare is also an associate member of Designer Makers 21 and, by invitation, of Craftco Southwold. Her studio, a repurposed barn in Earl Soham, is where Clare creates, teaches, exhibits and sells the work.